Photo by Steven Allen Adams House Minority Leader Doug Skaff, right, and members of the House Democratic Caucus met outside the Governor’s Office Monday calling on Gov. Jim Justice to place a gas tax freeze on the special session call.

Photo by Steven Allen Adams
House Minority Leader Doug Skaff, right, and members of the House Democratic Caucus met outside the Governor’s Office Monday calling on Gov. Jim Justice to place a gas tax freeze on the special session call.

CHARLESTON — With 17 bills on Monday’s flash special session of the West Virginia Legislature, Democratic leaders in the state Senate and House of Delegates said it was more notable what bills were not on the special session proclamation.

Both members of the House and Senate Democratic caucuses held separate press conferences Monday morning before the start of the April special session called by Gov. Jim Justice Friday.

Senate Minority Leader Stephen Baldwin, D-Greenbrier, said Justice’s proclamation leaves off several bills that passed the Senate or the House of Delegates with wide margins only to not make it out of the regular session that ended March 12, or bills that both bodies passed but were vetoed by Justice.

Baldwin said the special session agenda should include bills addressing the cost of insulin, the costs of operating volunteer fire departments, the price of gasoline, the foster care system, and the availability of broadband. Baldwin wrote a letter to Senate President Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, over the week raising these concerns.

“A special session has been called six weeks after we left the regular session,” Baldwin said. “Ordinarily, when we come back for a special session so soon after the regular session, it is due to urgent, pressing matters that are before the state. We know that there are urgent, pressing issues before the State of West Virginia today … none of these issues are on the special session call.”

Speaking in front of the Governor’s Office surrounded by his colleagues, House Minority Leader Doug Skaff, D-Kanawha, said it was clear from the list of bills on the special session call that Justice and Republican leaders did not share the same priorities as Democratic lawmakers.

“It’s about priorities and lack thereof … their priorities are all screwed up,” Skaff said. “This is our way of communicating and saying ‘Governor, we’re outside your office. Listen to the people of West Virginia’ … We stand with our Senate colleagues and support any of those bills, but as you can see, they were not added. You can see where (Justice’s) priorities were.”

House Bill 4252 would have reduced co-pay caps on insulin and medical devices used by people with type 1 and 2 diabetes. The bill would have dropped the maximum co-pay for 30-day supply of insulin covered by prescriptions from $100 to $35.

The bill would have put a $100 cap on cost sharing for devices used by diabetics, such as blood glucose test strips, glucometers and continuous glucose meters, lancets and lancing devices and insulin syringes. It would also put a $250 cap on cost sharing for insulin pumps used to inject insulin at programmed intervals. The passed both the House and Senate with wide support, but changes made to the bill caused it to get hung up on the last day of the session and not make it across the finish line.

“West Virginia has so many diabetics and as a physician, I know that some of my patients are rationing their insulin which can cost a lot of money; and the other injectables — such as Ozempic and Trulicity and things like that — they cost a lot of money out-of-pocket,” said state Sen. Ron Stollings, D-Boone. “We had hoped this insulin cap bill would make it on the initial agenda. I’m not sure why it didn’t. I think everything seems to think that bill is a good thing.”

Senate Bill 420, relating to distribution of certain taxes and surcharges to benefit volunteer and part-volunteer fire departments. The bill would have increased the surcharge on homeowners’ insurance by 0.55 percent, with the funds going towards a Fire Protection Fund. Monies from the fund would allow eligible volunteer fire departments to receive those funds equally and on a quarterly basis.

“We have to have a viable volunteer firefighting force, because that’s what we have to have as citizens,” said state Sen. Michael Romano, D-Harrison. “The reality is they’ve been struggling for years … If we don’t do that, we will continue to lose volunteer firefighters and volunteer fire departments.”

One bill that was not introduced during the 60-day regular session that Democratic lawmakers wanted to see during Monday’s special session was legislation providing consumer relief from the state gasoline tax. For nearly 40 days, Democrats have called for either a 30-day pause of the state’s 35.7-cent gas tax using $35 million of available surplus tax collections to make up the difference or a rebate for West Virginia drivers.

“We understand utility prices are going up, food prices are going up, and gas prices are going up,” said Del. Lisa Zukoff, D-Marshall. “This is a way to help West Virginians immediately. This isn’t about politics; this is about us wanting to talk to the Governor to work together, to speak to him. No letter that we have sent him during the legislative session or since that time has even been addressed to us. Sit down with us governor; let’s figure out how we can address these issues for everyday West Virginians.”